Truth Matters

Realism, Anti-Realism and Response-Dependence

The first full-length introduction to response-dependence

Truth Matters is an invaluable guide for student readers in search of a reliable introduction to response-dependence in epistemology. Setting out the issues clearly and concisely, Norris explains the both sides of the current debate and contextualises it by providing the relevant background history, including discussion of its sources and analogues in Plato, Locke, Kant and Wittgenstein. His book offers invaluable guidance for student readers in search of a reliable introductory survey of the field.

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Response-dependence claims to provide a 'third way' between the realist (or objectivist) conception of truth as always potentially transcending the limits of human ascertainment and the anti-realist (or verificationist) case that truth cannot possibly transcend those limits since then we could never acquire or manifest a knowledge of it.

Key Features

Clear, accessible account of some complex philosophical issues

First book-length study of the response-dependence debate

Informative discussion of its pre-history in philosophers from Plato to Hume, Locke and Kant

About the Author

Christopher Norris is Distinguished Research Professor in Philosophy at the University of Cardiff, Wales. He is the author of many widely-acclaimed books on various aspects of philosophy and critical theory, among them (most recently) Quantum Theory and the Flight from Realism and Minding the Gap: Epistemology and Philosophy of Science in the Two Traditions.